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– Cats would empty their own litter trays
– Israel and Palestine would mutually agree “screw it, let’s have a fancy dress party instead”
– People would read the article before commenting
– McVities would bring back Marmite-flavoured Mini Cheddars
– LEGO approves and manufactures this proposed FTL building set

LEGO Cuusoo is the community project-voting system which brought about the official LEGO Minecraft set last year. While FTL isn’t anything like the pop-cultural giant Mojang’s game is, I reckon it’s got enough of a following to make this plausible. Also, its chunky, reconfigurable spaceships and cutsey crew would seem to fit the LEGO ideals and aesthetic to a galactic tee.

I don’t know how many votes are needed for the great LEGO gods to raise their infinite yellow heads from the beneath the seas of Denmark and nod in almighty approval, but I’m pretty sure the at-the-time-of-writing 144 won’t be enough. So, get on it! The proposed project even includes Mantis and Engi crew members in addition to semi-iconic spacecraft such as the Kestrel.

Of course, if it’s anything like the Minecraft set it’ll be pornographically overpriced if it does happen. I went into a LEGO store with the express intention of buying one a couple of weeks ago, and my bellow of outrage when the shop assistant brought it over to me caused him to physically recoil. Sure, it looks relatively reasonable on the site, but when you actually see the thing the box is about the size of a kitten’s head. Dear Mr and Mrs LEGO, you are primarily a children’s toy, not a cuboid Faberge egg. Please remember this.

This is very nice & as a big FTL fan I’d contemplate getting it if the price was right* and it makes me want to link my preferred LEGO porn — the site will eat up your day if you’re of a LEGO-y disposition, especially if you like mecha and spaceships: http://www.brothers-brick.com

* it won’t be — Cuusoo stuff always seems overpriced**

** or at least that’s what you think before you realise that all LEGO is overpriced now

LEGO has always been overpriced, at least as long as I’ve been aware of them (admittedly not very long, as I’m only a teenager.) But it seems that CUUSO is especially so; maybe they make them in smaller batches?

I wouldn’t say LEGO is overpriced considering the quality of it. I’ve never had a bad new brick. Ones that are old and have been chewed on, sure aren’t great (though usually still work), but new bricks are just fine. Compare to say Megablox or whatever it’s called and you can clearly see the difference.

Fuck your statistics. I remember the day LEGOs doubled in price, quite clearly, when the lady at Rite-AID explained to 10-year old me that they would no longer sell “opened items” for half-price, but that she would be glad to fetch me an unopened one.

That is really a tremendous article. I remember those castle/pirate legos from 1989-1992 or so so fondly, though I was wise enough about money to know even then (around age 9) that my grandparents were blowing unconscionable amounts of money on them.

Even if this gets to 10,000 votes, i can’t see it getting past the review stage. I’ve no doubt the FTL devs would be happy licensing Lego their stuff, but its just not a big enough franchise for Lego to be interested in.

I really wish the makers of these custom models would release the build instructions and parts list instead, so I can just go and make them myself regardless of what official sets Lego release.

And if you want to get into the custom Lego scene, bricklink.com is the place to go to buy individual parts.

I think that’s the point of the 10,000 likes system; I assume LEGO estimates that somewhere below that 10000 number is how many they need to sell for it to be worthwhile. The problem is going to be actually GETTING that many votes.

The 10k votes thing elevates the kit to a stage where LEGO will consider it. They then look at stuff like content, potential reach (beyond the 10k votes), complexity & cost of he build and whether it will fit into LEGO’s range.

FTL LEGO won’t happen – it’s too niche – but I do wish if it did fail, LEGO would release the designs and part counts so people could make a stab at their own.

Do we really need this? There are so many LEGO-flavoured games out there already. FTL is a great game already — making a LEGO version is just exploitative. Don’t LEGO LOTR, Star Wars, Harry Potter and the rest make them enough money already?

In other news, I’ve got this problem with my knee. It appears totally uncontrollable…

EDIT: I was, of course, wearing my special trolloculars when reading the article and they can impede comprehension.

Wow, for once the figures and ships look like PROPER LEGO as opposed to the shit they do with Star Wars, LOTOR etc where they just craft a perfectly modelled head onto a body with a couple of Lego pincer hands.

When I was a child, I built wheels for my big Lego car out of regular bricks because I didn’t have any of those huge wheels I’d seen in the Lego catalogue. (This was before the Internet.) It worked fine. Well, as they weren’t completely round they wouldn’t turn on the floor, but on a carpet or the bed my terrain wheels were just as good as if I’d had the real thing. I also built my own versions of those castles and horses sold at the time.

Actually, the cuusoo project is not aimed at children primarily, but the AFOL community. My dad had the luck to get a review copy of the minecraft set (yes indeed) so I’ve had the opportunity to check it out, and it really is disgustingly small for its price. It’s a collector’s item, really.

I understand the coolness of having a pre-sorted set, but for the Kestrel can’t someone just post a brick list, and we go to a store, buy the individual bricks from the buckets and build it?
Am I missing something?

Its 10.000 votes, and then it will have qualified for the halfyear review where it will COMPETE with well, every other set that makes it to 10k, as LEGO will approve only one per review. Also its not a done deal then. They will analyse market potential as well. Thats why the Back to the Future set is making it into production. They will also not make something that is too close to anything they are already making, which is one of the reasons the Wild West town lost.

But go ahead and give it your vote, but I´d think I´d just look something up on flicker or mocpages and get meself the parts from bricklink instead.

Even before considering the competition from other sets, I wonder if FTL would run into the same problem the Firefly set did. Lego are very strict about what they want their brand associated with, and FTL has onscreen violence, racism, death and slavery (even if most of it is in little text boxes). That might make their brandmeisters baulk.

I saw this, and immediately had a pavlovian response that made me want to press a little star button. Since this website doesn’t have that feature, I will submit this comment as the closest possible analog.